MAGNIFICENT, Mike! All of it. Thanks, and may it get the widest possible distribution, which its thorough exposition, memorable words and impassioned good sense deserve! 

Ben 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Stone" <[log in to unmask]> 
To: [log in to unmask] 
Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2013 10:23:42 PM 
Subject: Re: MLA 2014 cfp: Roundtable on Teaching Racist Texts 

I agree with Hal Bush, and Alan Kitty, and Ben Wise, and Gretchen = 
Martin. 
If I see another Huck =3D racist screed, I'm moving to France. But = 
since, 
even with the free health care, free retirement, and free schooling for = 
my 
children, I can't afford to move to France, I offer instead the = 
following 2 
francs, or Euros, or whatever the hell they are spending over there. 

Will we never be done with the claim that Huckleberry Finn is a racist = 
text? 
It is an argument that should incite mirth. Yet it seems to command = 
respect 
from many pedagogues and scholars. To be sure, Twain himself would have 
laughed and sent thank-you notes to the various censoring librarians. He 
understood the commercial value of censorship. But isn't it time, 130 = 
years 
after the writing of the greatest work in American literature, that the 
defense prevail? 

To say Huckleberry Finn is a racist text is akin to saying the court 
reporter who took down the exploits of the Nazis at Nuremberg is an 
anti-Semite. It's like blaming the historian who excavated Columbus' 
startling praise of native Americans ("They would make fine servants. = 
With 
fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we = 
want."). 
It's criticizing Dean Swift's appetite for Irish children. 

There are two answers to this charge. One defends the writing, the other 
defends the man. Twain supplied both defenses in his lifetime. 

He spoke in eloquent and ample detail about the role of the native = 
novelist. 
Without the contributions of a thousand native novelists, we should be 
remitted to the history written by the historians. Huckleberry Finn = 
could 
give us a Happy Valley account of race relations, or it could tell us = 
what 
life was like. Mark Twain knew it couldn't do both.=20 

So what exactly is the problem? Is it that his book uses the n-word over = 
200 
times? Or is it that the word was used in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, 
Kentucky, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and God = 
knows 
where else many many more times (and still is, I wager---my alternative 
sources bring me the news that it's been used for 30 or 40 years by a 
Chicago cop recently put on trial for torturing black people into false 
confessions)? How do you write the history of a people without using the 
language they used?=20 

Twain said history is the life of the people. Orwell pointed out that = 
to 
destroy a people the first thing is to destroy their history. People 
forget, I think, that in writing this first white history of the real = 
South, 
Twain was simply doing a yeoman's job of reporting. "History?" you = 
object. 
Well, of course all the incidents were made up. But they were made up = 
from 
real life. If a real Huck had floated down the river with a real Jim, = 
these 
things might well have happened to both of them. Twain was not recording 
what people thought about race relations, he was illustrating the race 
relations that actually existed at one time and place. At a time like = 
the 
present, when race prejudice is intentionally blurred or neutered out of 
politeness or deceit, it is more important than ever that we have the 
incisive view of the native novelist. (It was Hemingway, after all---who = 
saw 
Huckleberry Finn as the beginning of our literature---who said you = 
should 
never trust a Southerner, unless he is a Negro). 

Twain was not merely not a racist. He was the most important white man = 
in 
ending racism. 

Not that he ended it. 

But what other white or black man had a hand both in criticizing Plessy = 
vs. 
Ferguson and also in vindicating Brown vs. Board of Education? What? = 
Say 
again? 

Yes. Mark Twain played a crucial role at the beginning and at the end of 
this racial saga. How is that possible, since he died in 1910? It's = 
possible 
because of his investments. What investments? His investments in people. = 
In 
1885, as Huck Finn was rearing its ugly head in this country, Mark Twain 
made an investment in a young Negro who desired to go to law school, = 
Yale no 
less. Twain paid his expenses. Like so many of his other investments, = 
Twain 
got nothing in return. But that boy became the mentor in Baltimore of a 
lawyer named Thurgood Marshall. And Marshall argued Brown vs Board of 
Education, so do you begin to see how the father of our beginning = 
literature 
was also the father of our beginning racial healing? 

What about Plessy vs. Ferguson? Well, while that case was wending its = 
way 
toward denouement in the Supreme Court in 1896, Twain was writing his = 
novel 
Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894). It could not have escaped well-informed = 
readers 
that the premise of his work was the same racial doctrine that underlay 
Plessy: viz., that a single drop of Negro blood makes you a Negro, = 
entitled 
to all that that identity is heir to. The brilliant irony of that work, = 
and 
its scathing indictment of our racist law and politics, is among the = 
highest 
of Twain's achievements, whether or not the experts ever get around to 
figuring out what he was talking about. 

It is part of the national shame, and it stands toward the front of the 
line, that Americans today could call Twain a racist. Huckleberry Finn's 
Chapter 31 ("All right, then, I'll go to hell!") is the apex of our 
literature and of our coming to terms with the race question. It should = 
be 
read out loud once a year by every American. I never read it without 
weeping, and I never weep without wondering if they are tears of sadness = 
or 
of joy. Twain's courage in writing it is only exceeded by Huck's in = 
living 
it, for he knew his act would bring society and religion down on him and 
forfeit the eternal life. Huck probably didn't know what it meant to be = 
a 
traitor to his class and his race, but he knew what it felt like. 

Young people who are black and white need to know about Huck. But the = 
Huck 
who was taught to say "nigger" is not the Huck who is made to say = 
something 
else in the new Bowdlerized and pacified versions.=20 

Let me be clear. Huck remains arguably without peer as the hero of our 
literature. "Nigger" was not his epithet; it was his predicament. If you = 
rob 
him of that, you diminish the grandeur of his moral feat and his = 
victory. 

The stupendous sweep of his courage must not be diluted by our own shame = 
at 
forcing him to his moral choice. For the children of today are faced = 
with 
their own choices, and they need our help, not our embarrassed = 
protection. 
We are not sparing the children when we excise the language that = 
describes 
our own shortcomings, not theirs. If the black child learns that his 
countrymen once said "nigger" he may be steeled against their still = 
saying 
it, under their breath, or thinking it. This is a loss of innocence, = 
yes, 
but is there not a world to gain? 

We're not much in this country for truth and reconciliation. Maybe = 
because 
we think we're exceptional, we prefer hypocrisy and forgetting. But = 
Twain 
wasn't like that at all. He had the courage to stare the beast in the = 
mouth. 
He favored truth and reconciliation---and recompense. On Christmas Eve = 
day, 
1885, he wrote to the dean of Yale Law School as follows: 

"If it were a matter of charity, I do not believe I would very = 
cheerfully 
help a white student who would ask a benevolence of a stranger, but I do = 
not 
feel so about the other color. We have ground the manhood out of them, = 
and 
the shame is ours, not theirs, and we should pay for it." 

And pay he did. The result was Warner T. McGuinn, first in his class at = 
Yale 
Law School, on whose death in 1937 Thurgood Marshall commented: 

"He was the best lawyer in Baltimore. If he were white, they would have = 
made 
him a judge." 

Thirty years later, they made Marshall a judge, and Twain's investment = 
bore 
its final return. 

Do you see? If all children were white, or if all men were brothers, we 
wouldn't need to insist on Twain's words. The first will never be true, = 
and 
the second won't either, unless we insist on his words. All of them. 

Michel L. Stone 
STONE & SUTTON, P.A. 
116 East Fourth Street 
Panama City, Florida 32401 
(850) 785-7272 office 
(850) 785-7094 fax 
[log in to unmask] =20 

NOTICE:=A0 Due to Presidential Executive Orders, the National Security = 
Agency 
may have read this email without warning, warrant, or notice.=A0 They = 
may do 
this without any judicial or legislative oversight and it can happen to 
ordinary Americans like you and me. You have no recourse nor protection = 
save 
to vote against any incumbent endorsing such unlawful acts. That may = 
not 
work, either. 
____________________________________ 

Check out my new play, Mark Twain Interruption: 
http://www.stageplays.com/products/mark_twain_interruptioncategorycyberpr= 
ess 
code417=20 



-----Original Message----- 
From: Mark Twain Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Hal Bush 
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 11:34 AM 
To: [log in to unmask] 
Subject: MLA 2014 cfp: Roundtable on Teaching Racist Texts 

Folks: here is a brand new CFP from C19, titled "Teaching Racist = 
Texts"... 
and guess what is this critic's star attraction? 

I'm troubled by the concept of a "racist text" being displayed so = 
cavalierly 
(especially now 40 years give or take after Derrida, Bakhtin et 
al) and wondered if others on here would be too. there are certainly 
racist tendencies in the text, but it's not exactly The Leopard's Spots = 
or 
anything, right?? 

Further, it would seem that the author of a "racist text" is also a = 
racist. 

Much of this has been debated in Twain studies ad nauseum, I know; I'm 
just thinking of how to (politely?) respond, and show my displeasure at = 
what 
I consider an unjust characterization of HF as a "racist text." 

comments? -hb 




---------- Forwarded message ---------- 
From: Brigitte Fielder <[log in to unmask]> 
Date: Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 11:08 AM 
Subject: MLA 2014 cfp: Roundtable on Teaching Racist Texts 
To: [log in to unmask] 


Teaching Racist Texts: A Roundtable on Pedagogy 

While continuing efforts have been made to incorporate a more diverse = 
array 
of writers into the American literary canon, the problem of racism still 
presents a pedagogical challenge. As literature courses seek to engage 
students in meaningful conversations about the assigned texts, they must 
also deal with the problem of those texts=3D92 content. Some literature 
contains material which is offensive =3D96 racial epithets, derogatory 
depictions of non-white people, assumptions of white supremacy. The = 
2011 
New South Books publication of Mark Twain=3D92s Adventures of = 
Huckleberry Fin=3D 
n sparked popular controversy by replacing the text=3D92s 219 uses of = 
the 
=3D93n-word=3D94 with the word =3D93slave.=3D94 While this change makes = 
the text m=3D 
ore palatable for some to read aloud, it does not evacuate all that is 
problematic about the texts=3D92 presentation of race and racism. Rather = 
than 
evacuating, dismissing, or ignoring racist content, engaging students in 
frank conversations about the racism inherent in much of American = 
literature 
will help them to address the difficult =3D96 sometimes offensive =3D or = 
hurtful 
=3D96 content of the literatures we read, discuss, and write about. 

The pedagogy of dealing with the racist content of American literature = 
will 
be the subject of this roundtable. Participants will share their = 
insights 
into common problems encountered when teaching racist texts, and = 
strategies 
for teaching students how to talk and write about this racism. 

Moreover, the pedagogical practice of attending to racism can help = 
students 
to better understand the literature at the center of our classroom 
discussions. 

Roundtable discussion topics may include: 

Student reluctance to talking about race Preconceptions about race and 
racism Historical contexts / racism in the present Dealing with dialect 
Redeeming texts / absolving authors Racist language =3D96 to repeat or = 
not to 
repeat? 
Being mindful of students=3D92 racialized persons The embodied professor = 
=3D96 
who gets to talk about race? 
How to write about racism without sounding like a racist 

100-word abstracts by 15 March to Brigitte Fielder ( 
[log in to unmask]). 

- --=3D20 
Brigitte Nicole Fielder, PhD 
Associate Lecturer in English 
University of Wisconsin, Madison 
Helen C. White Hall 
600 North Park Street 
Madison, WI 53706 




- --=3D20 
Prof. Harold K. Bush 
Professor of English 
3800 Lindell 
Saint Louis University 
St. Louis, MO 63108 
314-977-3616 (w); 314-771-6795 (h) 
<www.slu.edu/x23809.xml>